Israeli soldiers prepare for a patrol very close to the Israel-Gaza border today.AFP/Getty Images

Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza on Tuesday as militants launched rockets and a rare cross border raid after a deadly Israeli assault on an aid convoy.

Three of the five were killed by an Israeli strike in the north of the Hamas-run territory, according to Muawiya Hassanein, the head of Gaza emergency services.

The Israeli military said it carried out an air strike in the area about an hour after two rockets were fired from Gaza. There were no reports of any casualties or damage from the makeshift projectiles.

Israeli troops earlier shot dead two Palestinian gunmen who sneaked across the border in the southern part of the territory, according to a military spokeswoman.

“There was an exchange of fire in which they were killed,” she said, adding that no Israelis were wounded.

Witnesses on the Gaza side of the border said the exchange of fire was followed by Israeli shelling, and an AFP photographer saw an Israeli helicopter firing missiles.

There was no immediate report of casualties from the Palestinian side as ambulances were not able to enter the area.

The Palestinian group Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the attack, which came after a similar raid less than two weeks ago in which two teenagers were shot dead after breaching the border fence in the same area.

Gaza’s Islamist Hamas rulers tried to preserve calm since the end of Israel’s devastating assault on the strip in Jan. 2009, but smaller militant groups still occasionally fire rockets and trade fire with Israeli troops.